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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Trusting Your Intuition

This morning I woke up early to turn on the news reports and check the school website to see if school was closed. Last week we got 12 inches of snow and our district didn't close. The main roads weren't bad but there were tree branches falling left and right and power outages and my kids bus route isn't along a main road. The middle school bus got stuck, they sent another bus, which drove into a ditch. I drove the kids to the bus stop, waited for about 20 minutes, the bus ended up being 45 minutes late. I drove the kids back home and contemplated keeping them home for the day. I decided last week to be a responsible parent, load up my elementary daughter and drive everyone to school. The oldest two were a few minutes late and me and Phoenix hung out in the coffee shop across the street for an hour waiting for her school to start. I did not feel comfortable sending them home on the bus so I drove and picked up all three kids when the middle school let out. It turned out ok in the end but was a huge hassle and whether it was really safe was questionable.

Last night we got 7 inches of snow and it was still snowing until about 11:30am today. Total I think we ended up with around 9 inches of snow. This morning according to traffic reports the roads were a mess and people were sliding all over and spinning out. My older two kids get on the bus at 6:50am. I was definitely not comfortable sending them on the bus in those conditions. I also didn't think I could safely drive my sedan the 7 miles to my kids school. I woke up hubby and asked if he wanted to drive him in his Jeep or if he thought they should stay home. He said keep them home so I did. I hope that doesn't make me a bad parent but my children's safety is more important than 1 day of school for 3 children who excel in school and rarely get sick.

Maybe living in Maryland for over two years made me a wimp because in Maryland they close school with nearly every snowstorm and sometimes even close school when it doesn't seem necessary. The kids school district here seems to be of the opposite mindset not closing when it seems safer to do so. This is also the first year my kids haven't lived walking distance to their school and had to ride the bus. The way the boundary lines are drawn there school is 7 miles away. Maybe if it was a mile or two down the road I would've sucked it up and drove them, safe or not. Putting them on a bus in bad weather worries me a lot and since I don't work outside the home it is not something I am willing to do.

The crazy part is my kids' middle school is the district middle school for the mountain areas of the district and some kids ride a bus 1 hour each way to school in good weather. Last storm the highway to the mountain towns was closed and I suspect the same happened today. I guess those kids weren't going to school.

I previously lived in Colorado for 20 years and maybe I'm delusional but I don't remember back to back 9 inch plus snowstorms in late October, early November. I recall 2-4 inch snowstorms spread out a week or two throughout November-April with 2-3 bigger storms a season and a blizzard every few years. Maybe we're getting all our big storms in early this year? I have a feeling I may be in for a long winter!